


Speaking in Shadows

by MissTomorrow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Family Drama, Gray Jedi, Jedi, Jedi Training, Moral Ambiguity, Politics, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6244627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTomorrow/pseuds/MissTomorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are the force-sensitive daughter of an aristocrat from Tierell, a neutral planet in the violence between the First Order and the Resistance. As far as you knew, Jedi were characters in old legends—until you meet a padawan who insists that you leave your home to train with him and his master. You agree, if only because you sense the danger that your father and the rest of Tierell's government insists doesn't exist.</p><p>And, just when your new life begins to make sense, a young man with dark curls starts to haunt your dreams, asking for your help to return to the Light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cantina

You rubbed a smudge from the rim of your glass with your thumb, the goblet of green-tinted glass still chilling the tips of your fingers; entirely the fault of the liquid inside, of course. In spite of the noise surrounding you, you laid your head on the table; or, perhaps, it was in order to embrace the noise around you, as your eyelids fluttered closed and your hearing seemingly improved. 

The singer’s throaty tones carried throughout the cantina, bouncing off the dingy stone and striking you like gentle waves caressing all of your senses at once. The musicians were one thing, but the background vocals of animated conversation in too many languages to count, along with the clinks and slams of goblets and steins, were different, soothing, things entirely.

Here, in your dreamy trance, you felt a bit more normal than usual.

“Yer da’ won’t like tha’ you been drinkin’, little girl.”

Your eyes took their time in drifting upwards, unalarmed by the voice whose owner took his seat in front of you: a massive being with a mouth wide enough to close over more than just year head, rubbery black skin stretching smoothly over thick limbs and a broad head. His eyes—wide set, proportionally large to the sheer mass of his head—stared into yours with a small glimmer of kindness to dull their inky blackness.

“I’ll tell my father that you brought me here, Dagoor,” you shot back, only slightly picking up your head to push your goblet in his direction with just two fingers, letting the cold liquid swish up and down the glass sides.

Not a sip had been taken.

“‘S a waste o’ good wine, in’t it?” He sounded almost offended, and you gestured to the glass, which Dagoor promptly took and, not at all to your surprise, finished in a few short sips. The cup was dwarfed in his large hands, though he was considered rather small—for a Herglic.

Despite the frightening contrast between your size and his, Dagoor wasn’t all that much older than you. When you came of age at fourteen, your father insisted that you, like your older brother before you, needed a “proper” bodyguard. He tried to convince you to take on a human, first, or even a Devaronian (what with those dreadful horns), but Dagoor had come to your family seeking work, and you knew immediately that _he_ was meant to be your companion.

Maybe it was his shyness over his size, even at then-seventeen, or his Herglese accent when speaking Basic, but you loved the gentility buried beneath his threatening stature.

To you, Dagoor could never dream of hurting a tiny insect, but he had sworn to protect you, the daughter of a prominent aristocrat, regardless.

For all purposes, you never came to the cantina to drink. You found yourself craving its liveliness, hungering for the sheer number of species and languages floating around the room. None of it made sense to you, yet it still made your skin tingle with a certain excitement that you couldn’t name. And, anyway, you knew that you were always safe with Dagoor beside you. In spite of the Heglics’ docile and social nature, even the boldest smuggler shied away from attempting to cause one harm.

“Where have you been, anyway?” you started, gaze wandering around the open room from where your head rested, cheek on your arm. “Not causing fights, I hope.”

Naturally, that was a tease, and it brought a smile to your lips. Your eyes finally settled on a table of travelers—some smugglers, probably, others simply wayward pilots stopping at the cantina before going further out into space. Briefly, you found yourself wondering what that space might be like: unimaginable alien species, extreme climates riddled with colorful—poisonous?—flowers and untamed beasts. As soon as you thought that they might speak Basic, you laughed at yourself.

Only to be drowned out by the clank of metal against the worn wooden table.

“What is all of this?” you gasped, sitting up and leaning forward as your eyes surveyed the mess of silver and gold in front of you, from dented pieces to tangled chains. To you, it looked like junk that was once beloved pieces, or at least—well— _not junk_.

Dagoor gestured to the group of rogues you had looked upon before, and you noticed the cards in their hands, steins of ale in front of them, and variety of blasters in their belts. “‘M good at cards, see. I jus’ like the game.”

The explanation was simple, and you rolled your eyes, but there was no way you could hide your smile. Maybe _that_ was why you adored Dagoor so much: you and he shared a special inclination for causing trouble.

That all was cut short when one of those rogues slammed his fist down on the table not far enough from yours, cards flying everywhere as he stood up and grabbed one of the other men—who skittishly pointed in your direction.

Your heart jumped and your lips fell open, eyes flickering to Dagoor as you quickly stood up. “I think we’d better get out of here before someone changes their mind—”

Both of you gathered the winnings in hurried chaos, your hands clasping and pulling at chains and charms and coins while Dagoor did the same—or so you hoped, as your focus was on getting yourself out of the smuggler’s sight as quickly as possible.

_Was that a blaster in his hand?!_

The dented and tarnished metals spilled from your hands. Your legs carried you out of the cantina faster than your lungs could take air in and out of your body. Eyes steady on the door, you saw it closed in front of you, a hard wall of musty and rotting dark wood, until—

_Yes!_

_Someone_ opened it. You were under the poor soul’s arm and into the mass of people flooding the capital’s sidewalk. Darting under and around arms and bodies, you may as well have ran _through_ every passerby. If you hadn’t been afraid of the blaster in that smuggler’s hand, barrelling straight into a body here or there would have knocked you straight over, but your adrenaline propelled you forward.

Shouting.

Shouting rang out behind you. It took a brash, masculine tone. The accent was thick. Human, but colored with years of something _else_ entirely. And that, for some chilling reason, made your heart beat faster. And your legs pushed on.

You nearly tripped over a broken stone in the street. Stumbling forward, you landed nose-first in the chest of an unsuspecting merchant—

“Sorry!” you shouted. Your hands pushed off of his chest. Down a side street you turned—

Just as a blaster strike brought down chunks of stone from the wall _where your head just was._

Tears sprung to your eyes at that thought. You had no time to hear the hiss of burnt marble and the _crumbling_ of softer stone behind you. Away; you had to get away from the damned crazed maniac that was trying to _kill you_ over a lost game of cards. And it wasn’t even _your_ game; he couldn’t even _really_ know whether or not you were carrying what he _fairly lost_.

Stars, _you_ didn’t even know what you were carrying.

You scolded yourself. Hysterics were not an option, not as that smuggler turned and followed you right down the side street. A crash and a shout behind you—you barely heard the tumbling of fruits, so neatly organized that morning, or the clambering of the merchant to stand, shouting expletives at the rogue _behind you_ …

Turning again, your hands found boxes. Not a thought, not a moment of hesitation, and those boxes— _thank goodness they were empty—_ flung out behind you, and you hoped with all your heart that it bought you a moment of time.

Time, only, to run right into a wall.

Or, _the_ wall, rather, as the government decided that a walled city was a _great_ idea. If you’d been alive then, they’d have a piece of your mind—

Like the wall was about to have tiny pieces of you splattered all over it.

As if your body gave up entirely, your knees crumbled. On the ground, curled up, you even tried to pull a small _whimper_ from your throat. An aristocrat’s daughter wasn’t taught how to defend herself; she was given a bodyguard. Maybe, just maybe, your last resort would get the smuggler to pity you, and leave you once he realized that your bark was far worse than your bite.

The footsteps approached, and you heard them through your closed eyes. Your hands flew up to your face, as if that could protect you from the point-blank blaster shot you were about to take to the face, or the heart, or the stomach—

You and he breathed in bated unison. You’d always thought that dying meant that your life would flash before your eyes, but for all purposes—your mind was hopelessly blank.

No, that wasn’t true. The voice in your head was counting. Up from one, and you’d gotten to a terrifying twelve when your hands began to shake. Joints locked, breaths heavy— _out of fear or from all that running?—_ your entire body quaked in horror.

“Gimme the damned locket, ya whore” he hissed. The blaster clicked once, and you knew well that it was cocked and pointed at you. “People on the other side of the _galaxy_ are paying me more than you ever could.”

Absolutely helpless. That’s what you were, you sorry little thing. He could have you dead in one shot, take back whatever that locket was, and dump your body off in some far corner of the galaxy before you even missed dinner.

Then there was the deafening sound of crushing bone.

You gasped, swearing on your life that you were dead, but if you were swearing on your life when you didn’t have a life anymore…

But how were you thinking if you were dead?

Your eyes flew open, only to widen more as you saw a Herglic with a deceptively innocent look on his face as he stared down at the man crumpled face-down on the dusty stone, blaster kicked away— _far_ away. The smuggler faced away from you, but you just knew that his face wouldn’t look much like a face if you saw it. Leather, mismatched—a black jacket and brown trousers—and a sad tan-ish linen shirt peeked from under the jacket’s hem. He was wearing quite a lot of jewelry, too, and you wondered just how well a smuggler got paid…

But how much did that matter when a Herglic slammed his head into a wall?

“Dagoor!” you shouted in your breathless rush, your adrenaline finally fading away. Though your joints unlocked and your tears subsided, you still felt the burn set into your muscles. Your throat felt too dry, leaving your voice sounding nothing like the one that belonged to you. Death wasn't anything new to you; you'd seen plenty of smugglers shoot each other or drunks strangle each other in the streets. But  _being chased_? That was definitely not a normal part of your day.

“Th’ little man shouldn’a try to shoot you. Two times, he did,” he replied, sinking down to his knees and placing a large hand on your forehead. “No blood.”

“No blood,” you repeated in a defeated sigh. Your eyes fell closed and you leaned into Dagoor’s palm, finding comfort in both its smoothness and its chill. This time, your breathing slowed to match the heartbeat you felt from your bodyguard's—your _friend’s—_ hand.

The gentle tinkle of metal brushing together took your attention. Eyes fluttering open, you pulled away from Dagoor to lean back, against the wall, while he picked up the jewelry and coins you had dropped beside you.

“Little girl din’t drop anything,” he laughed, and you smiled at him. Your heart and head both knew that he was doing his best to lighten the mood, to make you smile and be happy, for that was all he ever hoped to do. But, this time, the shock still overpowered you, and you found your smile to be half hearted.

“He said he wanted the locket,” you murmured, letting out another sigh to get your breathing back to normal. You weren’t sure if you’ve ever wanted something to drink as much as you did in that moment, really…

Dagoor took a few long moments to untangle all of the cords and chains with his massive fingers, and you couldn’t help leaning forward to carefully twist and tug, pull and pry, until the nest of fading silver and gold and bronze had become, finally, separate pieces.

“This ‘ne,” he decided, holding up the most unimpressive one of them all: dulling gold, a thin chain with a knot near its clasp, and a dangling oval of a pendant reaching for the ground.

But still, you were drawn to it. You leaned forward, lips parted, brow creased, eyes steady on the locket. In that long moment of looking at it, you swore that it glowed a brighter shade: something yellow-orange, something bright and beautiful and not at all dull or tarnished or plain.

It tugged you toward it from your very core—or your heart, rather—but you bit down on your lip and forced your eyes to look away.

“Let’s get rid of it,” you decided. That necklace scared you, chilling your blood with the way that it called to you, the way that it begged you to touch it, to _wear_ it. Did the daughter of an aristocrat really have any need for such a trivial thing? And if she did—

That daughter wasn’t you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy moly that was chapter one! 
> 
> Hello and welcome to both my brand-new project, and my first ever endeavor on ao3 and in the Star Wars fandom. I'll be upfront with you now: we won't be seeing Kylo Ren for a while, but I can promise Ben Solo very, very soon. I hope this chapter didn't put anyone off, and you'll be staying with me and our reader for a very long and very wild ride. 
> 
> Also, for anyone curious or interested, Tierell is a canon planet in the Thesme sector of the Outer Rim (ie. in the northeast of the galaxy), and Herglics are a canon species; I like to keep everything as close to the original material as possible, since I just can't help it.
> 
> I'm planning to update every Sunday evening (EST), so I'll see you all next week!


	2. Stormtroopers

“Where in the galaxy have you  _ been _ ?”

Moments like those really warmed your heart.

Your brother could be a bit of a hothead: cursing at things that you let go, reacting with some sort of hidden strength when his emotions were just  _ nudged  _ out of line, never allowing things in his world to be out of place…

One one hand, it was comical. On the other, you knew that he cared—if only from the fury in his eyes when he grabbed you by the forearm and dragged you into the city’s capital building. When you got to him, he’d already gone through the panic, the worry, the passive fretting, so he was then on the active forcing you to remain in his sight. He may be emotional, but at least he was predictable. 

“I was out,” you tried, eyes drifting up to look at him. His hair fell in waves around his dark eyes, and his lips formed a hard line at your answer.  Clearly, he wasn’t pleasent with your lie-by-omission. Sighing, you amended with, “I mean, Dagoor and I were out. We… Played cards.”

That wasn’t a complete lie, either, but  _ he  _ knew that it was at least a  _ partial  _ lie. He was always the one who hated lying, while you didn’t mind omitting or rewording the truth to work in your best interest. There was always some amount of truth in every lie, anyway.

“What did you win from the smugglers?” he pressed, voice low. Without bothering to look at him, you felt him dip to lessen the space between the two of you, leaning ever so slightly downwards so he could speak right into your ear—and there was a small edge of playfulness in his demanding tone. 

At that, you gave him half a grin. “Just a few pieces of jewelry, some coins. I asked Dagoor to get rid of everything, so you can calm down.”

He nodded, his back straightening to neatly clip the conversation at its end. Deep down, you knew he was proud: if his sister came back alive, she must have done something right against the galaxy’s most lawless creatures.

You wiggled your arm free of his grasp so you could more comfortably fall into step at his side, reaching your legs to match his longer strides. He moved with a quick grace, effortless steps carrying him through the marble-decorated hallway too quickly to be just walking to the aristocrats’ estates—your home. This time, your brother had a purpose in his walk.

Still, you found your gaze wandering outside of the corridor, through the windows to the sidewalks and canals that formed the network connecting one end of the city to the other. The windows opened up every exterior hallway in arch shapes that swept like mountains around the entire government section of the building. The outermost halls then branched off to the heart of the building, the hearing room, or the smaller homes behind the government building, where your family lived.

Taking your hand again, your brother pulled you up a set of yellow-carpeted stairs, his steps quick enough to leave you out of breath in your effort to keep up.

“They’re having their monthly public hearing,” he whispered, filling the silence as he slowed for you to catch up. “All of the aristocrats are hearing the concerns of the people, and so are we.”

You saw the shine of trouble in his eyes and pretended to shake your head—pretended to be disappointed in him—no matter how often the two of you had done this before. Encouraging your mischief was always his fault, wasn’t it? He was always dragging you with him to listen in on government meetings ever since you were children, running down the corridors in fear of getting caught, and sneaking back into your family’s estate before your father ever found out.

Tierell had been this way for as long as you could remember, but you knew that plenty of people,  _ the  _ people, were still skeptic about the relatively new government that took over the planet many years before even your older brother’s birth.

It all started with a few merchants: including your father, who was a man in his then-twenties who thought himself trained in the art of survival, as formal education was but a dream on Tierell under the old government—if there even  _ was  _ a government. The planet was ruled, more or less, by smuggling rings and crime lords, but your father always said that it was ruled by fear instead.

Fear of losing your share, he said, of being beaten or killed over a loaf of bread or a few fragments of ore.

You didn’t know what exactly brought it all about, but you liked to imagine a group of heroes frustrated, an uprising brewing under the surface of Tierell’s chaotic society for decades before the heroes—among them your father—finally snapped. 

Those heroes became the Council of Aristocrats, champions to end poverty and enforce progress.

Champions was the perfect word, you thought. It had you imagining storybook knights in white robes, liberating those who couldn’t defend themselves with glowing staffs of green and blue.

You didn’t know much about the liberation itself. Battle wasn’t for women, your father said, but it was your brother who passed on what you considered the  _ real  _ stories of your father’s heroism. Of planned attacks on crime lords’ stronghold neighborhoods, of secret deals to turn the smugglers against each other, of Robin Hood moments where the oppressed merchants—the honest men like your father—stole from the rich and gave to the poor. You knew that there had been blood, and men lost their lives, but you also knew that those who died  _ had  _ to so that the rest could live in freedom.

Fear hadn’t been abolished so easily, though, as the absence of smugglers let the liberated people make their own rules while the heroes attempted to create a new government. People who only knew oppression and violence wouldn’t immediately know how to act peacefully, and crime spiked in the temporary anarchy before the Council of Aristocrats made their home in a then-desolate mansion. 

Your textbooks at school claimed that everything was tamed when one of the aristocrats, an elderly Pantoran by the name of Guo Kun, wrote citywide meetings into the government’s plan, and the people were pacified by the promise that their leaders were, at least, legally obligated to listen to them.

Exactly how much that had done, you weren’t sure, since even you doubted that just one promise ended all crime, but you did find comfort in the fact that that was a promise kept over the recent decades.

“Don’t talk,” your brother hushed you before grabbing your arm and dragging you to the balcony of the hearing room. He pushed open the heavy white door that led to the balcony halls with one shoulder, and you stayed close behind his back.

“You’re the one talking, Cenric,” you hissed back to him, taking a few steps on your toes to better reach his ear. He shot you a look of warning.

You grinned.

Cenric dragged you past the sweeping windows, the blue stone statues of the fallen heroes and original aristocrats—including that of your father’s likeness, which you’d never get used to seeing—and the occasional page or scribe rushing through the corridors to some office or another. 

They always looked so determined to you, as if their service to Tierell’s people was all that was on their minds. 

You admired that.

You  _ envied  _ that.

You so longed for the purpose that they  _ must  _ have felt, that you swore to your father that you’d be taking his place in the hereditary line for every Council seat, but there was just one, minor problem:

You were the  _ second  _ child.

Cenric was the first in that hereditary line, and the two of you had been competing in everything since the day you were born.

For the record, you  _ always  _ cried less. You were quite the happy baby, if you do say so yourself.

You and Cenric both ducked under one of the arches the opened the corridor to the balcony, slipping into one of the small, semi-circular rooms that looked over the larger hall: a grand room about three storeys tall, with a golden floor that shone in the passing sun visible through the domed glass roof.

Why a building like that had ever been left to the mercy of time and weather was beyond you.

While Cenric settled in a crouch, you instead sat cross-legged, leaning your side against the wall before the stone was replaced with a frosted glass, distorting the image below you.

But you didn’t really need to see.

You just wanted to hear.

“Sers,” a smallish alien with a long, T-shaped head spoke, the voice echoing from the two mouths on his neck. “Sers, I fear for the safety of my farm.”

There was an air about this man. Skittish, perhaps, but you had known his species—Ithorians—to be rather calm.

You leaned forward, brow creased. His demeanor told novels.

Guo Kun leaned forward, too, clasping two indigo-hued hands in front of his deeper blue lips, but it was your father to speak.

“If the amount of wild animals threatening your crops is troubling you, Tal, I’m sure we could send a few workers to help you construct a stronger fence--”

“It isn’t the animals!” he responded quickly, cutting off your father’s last syllable in a shrill tone.

The eyes on either side of his head shifted around the room, stopping for half a second on each of the thirteen aristocrats seated in a circle around him. They each sat in identical posture, stiff backs with white robes draped over straight shoulders, each robe’s hood framing their one different characteristic:

Their expressions.

Two of the female aristocrats shared a worried look that Guo Kun caught, your father—like many of the others—kept his eyes on the Ithorian in front of him. Your father seemed so powerful dressed in such a pure color, seated on a throne of polished black wood that shown in the afternoon sun, brow creased as he worked through the poor farmer’s worries.

You  _ felt  _ the trust the people held for them. The aristocrats saved them all from the smugglers and crime lords—so what’s a small farm problem to them and their fearless power?

“Then what  _ is  _ the problem, if not wild animals?” The female Rodian, Akee, who never usually spoke, grasped the room’s attention as she leaned forward, taking the silence to ask the question that everyone else—including you—had been thinking.

There was a long pause. You looked to your side, where Cenric leaned upward to peek over the glass barrier. His lips formed a tight line, as did his brow, and you already knew that he was too focused to feel your eyes on him this time. 

You frowned, too.

Then, there was a pitiful sort of whine that echoed throughout the hall; it began from two mouths and drifted both left and right, then back again in a circle of sound that spiralled up toward the domed ceiling, sending a jolt of cold down your spine.

And you jumped when Cenric pressed his hand to your shoulder.

“Why is he so scared?” you whispered, careful to angle your head down so your voice couldn’t carry through the room.

“Something bad,” Cenric said, his frown pressed against the back of your head. “Don’t talk.”

“It… It, Your Aristocracy, th-they came in a pair, with blasters and… Sers, they said that my farm would be  _ necessary for progress _ , but whose progress, I… I don’t know. I just don’t know,” the farmer began to babble, and you turned your head to your brother with questions in your eyes—but his were set forward, his face like stone, his hand hard against your shoulder.

The aristocrats gave him silence. None of them pressured him for an answer; at least, not verbally, since you could only make out blurs of color from your position behind the glass, with them all seated so far from you. The silence grew both longer and louder, banging in your ears like festival drums, until they were cut but the  _ whoosh  _ of a collective gasp.

Whatever you had been expecting certainly wasn’t what the Ithorian said.

“Sers, I-I believe they were  _ stormtroopers _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some First Order tension! And, as you know, where stormtroopers are, someone in a mask isn't too far behind...
> 
> See you all next Sunday!


	3. But They're Not Real

Stormtroopers were always part of old stories. Not legends, not fairy tales, but stories in history books. The Empire, with its incredible number of white-clad soldiers held much of the galaxy in its iron grasp. The stormtroopers were things of nightmares, if you remembered the photographs and drawings well enough: faceless, emotionless, _inhuman_.

But the Empire fell years before you were born.

It was all just _history_. You had no memory of it, and you were thankful for that, at least.

“Don’t talk about what you heard,” Cenric demanded, breaking your thoughts. He dragged you straight out of the hearing room, hand still clamped on your shoulder. His eyes stared into yours with an intensity you’d never seen before, mixed with something else…

Could that be worry?

“Except with you?” you tried. Brow raised, you nodded: a slow up and down of your head that didn’t stop until your brother mimicked it.

“ _Only_ with me. I don’t even know…” His words stopped mid-sentence.

He tore his hand from your shoulder to bury his fingers in his hair with a sigh of your name.

With a frown on your lips, you leaned against the wall behind you. Your head rested on the cold marble and your eyes fell shut, arms and hand falling limply to your sides.

_Stormtroopers._

“Have you ever seen one?” You whispered.

Your muscles felt tight, especially in your shoulders. It could have been a lingering soreness from the death-grip that Cenric had on you, but that wouldn’t explain the way that your stomach clenched and unclenched like a heart struggling to beat.

Cenric, too, looked like all of his muscles were contracted, as if ready to run or fight, but he still shook his head. “Pictures of old helmets, maybe some drawings. They’re not the threats we’re taught to fight against as Knights.”

“You’ve been in the program since you were eighteen. No one’s mentioned stormtroopers in all those years?”

He gave you a warning glance. “They’re gone. Knights of Tierell protect the planet from crime lords and smugglers, not a corrupt government.”

“Not even the hypothetical idea of—”

“Stop trying to create answers where there aren’t any,” he sighed, taking a few steps toward you until the wall stopped him. He turned, frowned at you, and slipped to sit against it. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Your eyes fell closed, and your legs went limp. Slowly, you curled up between your brother and the wall, your head on his shoulder and his arm around you. His hand was gentler, this time, as it clasped around your shoulder and pulled you to his chest.

Even then, you still felt cold.

His breathing fell into pattern with yours, and you didn’t know who slowed down or sped up—but every breath in still felt labored, as both of you focused your energy on maintaining some sense of calm, on controlling _something_. You felt his head against yours, cheek on your temple, and the corner of his frown against your forehead.

“What do they want from us?” You finally whispered, breaking the pensive silence between you.

His frown hardened while he pulled away, then shifted to face you—and turned you to face him, his knees against yours, his hands on your shoulders. “Nothing. There are no stormtroopers. You’ve always jumped to the worst conclusion, remember?”

Your nose reflexively crinkled; you hated being written off. Something in you just _knew_ , and believing him seemed like believing a fairy tale.

“Promise me,” he started, in a firm tone. You couldn’t tell if the uncertainty in his tone was really there, or just something of your imagination.

“Promise you _what_?”

“That you’re not going to get yourself into trouble over this,” he huffed. Pulling one hand away from your shoulder to run in through your hair instead, his eyes went soft. “They’re ghosts. Okay? Ghosts are scary, really scary, but they’re not real.”

“Like how you’re scared right now,” you snorted, finding it easier to relax without the uncertainty in his eyes when you looked into them. When he raised a brow, you rolled your eyes. “I promise, Cenric.”

“Repeat what I just said.”

Your eyes narrowed, inspecting his face for any sense that he might be kidding—and you found none. “I’m not a child.”

He gave you a look of warning: _don’t try to argue_.

“ _Stormtroopers are scary, but they’re not real._ ” After stressing every word, you sighed at the end, eyes falling as your lips pursed. “I just don’t know what to think.”

“Think what I tell you to think,” Cenric shrugged, but your brow creased at the clear tension in his shoulders: he rolled them once they settled back down. “For now. Okay?”

You laid one hand on his chest to push away from him so you could stand up. One step back, and Cenric still sat there, watching you, with an impure confidence in his eyes; there was something underneath that look on his face, but it remained too well hidden for you to pin what it was. Rather, you stared down at him while he stared up at you, and the silence between you only grew longer and longer—until you softly broke it.

“I’m… Going to try to find Dagoor.”

Cenric nodded at you and, finally, stood up himself. “Does he smell like blaster discharge, too?”

Your eyes widened. Quickly, you grabbed the shoulder of your top and pulled it up to your nose, taking a long breath in and— _Oh_.

You coughed.

The barely-there smell of _burning plasma_ still managed to effectively clog both your nose and throat, the smell and taste of it still lingering after you’d let go of your clothes. You couldn’t imagine what your hair must have smelled like, and that would take _days_ to get rid of it from your skin.

“Hey.” Cenric punched your arm. “I’m a Knight. You get to know certain smells after years serving your planet with the best and brightest, you know? We could always use a few more female Knights…”

You rolled your eyes. “Look, thanks, but no thanks. I love fighting crime and keeping the peace just as much as the next girl, but blasters? No thanks. And I don’t even want to know what smells you’ve become friendly with.”

“Oh, mostly sweat, a little blood, some rotting flesh…”

“More like burning animal flesh,” you taunted. “The Knights have just been pest control lately, haven’t you?”

“Pests like smugglers,” he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. “Stars, go find Dagoor. He probably _misses_ you.”

“I bet he does!” You huffed. A swell of pride lingered in your chest while you turned on your heel, and you envisioned your hair flipping perfectly as you made your way back out of the hall. A little touch of self-satisfaction never hurt anyone, did it?

 

* * *

 

The trouble came from the fact that you simply couldn’t _find_ Dagoor. Though he was your personal bodyguard, he still was a servant to your family—and that meant that his help could have been called upon by your father or brother, and for anything, really.

Or he could simply have been getting food with your brother’s bodyguard, but you liked to dream up fantastic situations and worst-case scenarios whenever you could. In spite of living on a planet that boasted higher crime rates than most, along with an incredibly vicious animal population in the rural areas around the capital, you longed for adventure outside what Tierell could give you.

Maybe you really should have taken your brother’s suggestion of signing up for Knight training. It wasn’t like you had any other dreams or goals for your future.

You hated that you were wandering, both metaphorically and physically. The former, because you longed for purpose, and found yourself feeling incomplete at being just your father’s daughter or your brother’s sister. Maybe it was something to do with the way women had only _now_ been introduced into education or politics—or the fact that “intellectual” industries were uncommon on Tierell.

Among merchants and farmers, you were lucky for your status. You should have been grateful.

But you weren’t, you thought, as you walked through the corridors in search of your closest friend.

“We should be sending Knights to investigate the situation at the Ithorian’s farm, not waiting for something worse to happen.”

_The Ithorian?_

You made your steps as quiet as you could while you edged closer to the source of the voice: too easy to distinguish with her too-clear accent. Akee, the Rodian aristocrat, came into your view, though you saw just about three-fourths of her face, while another aristocrat’s back was more or less to you.

But you could recognize him anywhere, with his straight back and tousled hair, arms over his chest in his usual _listening pose._

Your father stood with her, and you watched him shake his head. “Tal is a very old man, Akee. He remembers the Empire’s stormtroopers. I can’t imagine how it must haunt him… The memory of it all, I mean. I’m sure anything white is painful to see.”

“Regardless of how crazy the man may or may not be, are stormtroopers not a serious threat to you? A few Knights can go and look around. They’ll probably prove you right.”

“Even if there were stormtroopers there, how could they leave a trace? Boot marks in the sand blow away, and it doesn’t seem that they shot or stole anything.” The remorse in your father’s tone gave away his expression to you, though you still couldn’t see most of his face: a frown, with pity in his eyes that tugged your lips downward, too.

_Stormtroopers are scary, but they’re not real._

But, even if they were real, the Knights of Tierell couldn’t do anything.

“I still suggest we send at least a pair of Knights. If only to show the people that their fears are always attended to,” Akee persisted, and your eyes flickered open. You edged closer, trying your best to peek further around the doorway to see just a bit more.

“You’re right, Akee. We cannot have the people lose faith in their government, not when—”

“Th’ little girl shououldn’a be listenin’ to her da’s conversation.”

You jumped and spun around, eyes wide and mouth gaping—only to find a tremendous Herglic standing in front of you with his best toothy grin on his pleasant face.

“Dagoor!” You whispered, turning to look over your shoulder as you heard the ruffle of papers and steps of boots. “Oh, stars— Go, Dagoor, come on!”

Grabbing him by the hand—or, just one of his fingers—you made a run down the hall, trying your hardest to keep your steps light while Dagoor’s, unfortunately, only reflected his size in the way he no less than stomped down the stone flooring. You used all of your effort and pulled him around a corner, breaths heavy as you finally stopped running, deeming yourselves far enough away from your father and Akee to be free of any suspicion.

You looked up at him, briefly envious that _his_ chest wasn’t at all heaving. “Did you hear any of that?”

“Of th’ sers’ conversation?” He tilted his head, then shook it. “No. Jus’ try to keep you outta trouble.”

“Thank you, Dagoor.” Your head dipped, and you couldn’t hide the disappointment in your voice, though, admittedly, you couldn’t say that you’d really been _trying_. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“Wha’s troublin’ th’ little girl?”

Dagoor’s eyes looked so comfortingly honest, and you knew well that you could trust him. You trusted him with your own life on a daily basis, every time you dragged him into trouble and he dragged you right back out—no matter how painful that sometimes was to endure, though you never really learned, anyway.

But stormtroopers were something else entirely, and you weren’t even certain what that could possibly be. A reincarnation of the Empire? A few rogue vigilantes? Nothing? _Everything_?

“They’re… Talking about sending some of the Knights on a mission,” you began in a careful tone. “I’m worried that they’ll send Cenric.”

That wasn’t a _complete_ lie. You didn’t want your brother going hunting for stormtroopers.

“All th’ Knights go on missions,” Dagoor mused, giving you a shrug as he started back down the corridor, toward your bedroom. “Th’ little boy’s a strong Knight.”

That was exactly why you were worried.

Dagoor stopped near your room, waiting for you to open the door. His species was always polite by nature, but his _place_ in your family made him even more conscious of manners than he was when he came to you so many years ago. When you laid your hand on the door, though, his hand on your arm stopped you.

“I’ve somethin’ for you,” he grinned, fishing in his jacket’s pocket for something, which he clumsily produced with his large fingers: the tarnished golden locket that called to you that morning, and called to you again when it showed its dainty face to you.

“Dagoor…” you frowned, unable to stop your hand from taking the thin chain and pendant from him when it was offered to you. “I thought you got rid of everything we won.”

“All bu’ that. You liked it,” he admitted. You swore that, if his skin wasn’t dark as night, he would have been blushing like a child.

“Thank you.” You looked down at the locket, running your fingers along the chain, over its clasp, and across its face—and you noticed, for the first time, that it had some faint engravings, filled in with dirt and who knows what else.

It was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is a day late, and a little bit of a slow chapter. Regardless—I hope you liked the tension that's starting to build, and you'll still hold out for Kylo Ren's big appearance very soon!


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